The Midnight Rose (33 page)

“I’m afraid I haven’t. I begin my nursing training in London in September. I understand you’ll have to find someone else to take care of little Eleanor, but I’ve noticed that Jane, the new young maid from the village, has a particular liking for her, and Eleanor seems fond of her too. I think you might find she can care for her very well indeed.”

Selina gave a long sigh. “Well, Anni, I hope you know what you’re letting yourself in for. One of my friends joined the VADs and lasted a week. She had to empty bedpans!” She wrinkled her nose. “I suppose it would be against king and country to ask you to reconsider, so of course you must go. So, I shall just sit here in this godforsaken pile of ours and make up a four for the weekly game of bridge with Mother, the priest and his seventy-year-old sister!”

On instinct, I took one of her small, pale hands in mine. “Lady Selina, I can promise you that there’s much happiness coming in your future. In fact, I think you may have already sensed it while you were in London.”

She stared at me in amazement. “Oh, Anni, how can you know these things? Yes, there was one man, but, of course, I’m only widowed nearly a year, and Mother certainly wouldn’t approve of him. He’s a foreigner, a French count who’s working in London as liaison on behalf of the French government.” She blushed prettily and looked up at me shyly. “To be perfectly blunt, Anni, I like him far more than I should.”

“I promise you, Lady Selina, if you follow your heart and don’t let others persuade you otherwise, then all will be well.”

“Thank you, Anni, thank you. You seem to give hope to everyone around you.”

“I only say what my instincts tell me.”

“Well, may
I
say that you deserve someone special too.”

“Thank you, Lady Selina.” As I walked away, I doubted that even she would approve if she knew who I wished that person could be.

November 1918, Northern France

I
don’t wish to go into detail about what I saw during my time nursing our poor boys in France. You will have read in the history books, I’m sure, just how dreadful it was. I can only say that anything they might report can never describe the true horror I witnessed.

I was sent out to France a few weeks after my initial training. I’d proved adept and they were desperate for nurses to care for those wounded on the front line. Like everyone else who was present at that time, it left memories which remain indelibly imprinted on my soul. The utter despair that comes from watching the human race destroy itself tested my faith. I was merely grateful that my mother had taken me when I was young out to the villages in Jaipur and that I’d seen true suffering before. At least I was more prepared for it than most.

I will tell you, though, that I bumped into Ned, my friend Charlotte’s twin brother. He was in my field hospital for a few days with a deep gash to his forehead. I bound it for him, and it was a pleasure to see a familiar face from a more tranquil time in my life.

Ned must have felt the same, and as he was stationed near our hospital behind the lines, during our rare time off, he used to take me to the local town of Albert, where we’d have at least a few hours’ respite. We talked about books, art, theater—anything that wasn’t to do with the dreadful reality we both faced daily.

I was with him on the day the armistice was finally declared. By then, the trenches were half empty, partly due to the horrific second battle of the Somme and the fact that there seemed little point in shipping in replacement cannon fodder, as it became more apparent that the Germans would have no choice but to surrender.

We were among a crowd of nurses and soldiers who drove in a jeep to Albert, none of us daring to believe it could actually be true. Soldiers of all nationalities were pouring into the town square from along the front line—English, French, American and even Indian—and a
makeshift band played together that night in a euphoric cacophony of joyous sound.

I vividly remember someone letting off fireworks, and the entire square quietening suddenly. Our senses were alert, afraid that we had been wrongly informed and it was the sound of German rockets. But as the fireworks blazed into the sky, the sparkling colors and patterns of light assured us that it was not.

And it was just after the fireworks that I received a tap on my shoulder.

I was in Ned’s arms at the time, dancing to the tunes of the Dixieland Jazz Band. We paused and I glanced around, and there, looking like an aged shadow of his former boyish self, was Donald Astbury.

“Anahita? Is it you?”

“Donald?” I was holding my breath, hardly daring to believe it.

“Yes.” He smiled. “Selina wrote and told me that you’d joined the VADs, but what a coincidence to find you here tonight!”

Ned was standing to attention—Donald was a senior officer—so I dutifully made the introductions and the two men shook hands.

Donald looked down at me with affection in his eyes. “Do you know, Sergeant Brookner, the last time I saw this young lady, she was nearly fifteen years old. And now look at you, Anni!” His eyes swept up and down my body admiringly. “All grown up. I hardly recognized you. And,” Donald continued explaining to Ned, “it was also Anni who told me I would see the war out safely. Many were the times I’d be in the trenches and look at your letter, Anni, and believe that I would get through. So”—Donald smiled suddenly, his weary, gray face lighting up—“here I am!”

The musicians began to play a chorus of “Let Me Call You Sweetheart.”

“Would you mind, old chap, if I had this dance with Anni?” Donald asked Ned.

“Of course not, sir,” said Ned with what I thought was a trace of sadness in his voice.

“Thank you. Come on, Anni, let’s go and celebrate this happy occasion.” Donald took my hand and swept me off into the crowd.

I’m ashamed to say that I didn’t return to Ned’s arms that night. Donald and I danced the night away together in that village square of northern France as though our lives were just beginning. And perhaps, in many ways, they were.

“I can’t believe how you’ve grown up!” he said to me a hundred times. “Anni, you’re so beautiful!”

“Please”—I blushed each time he said it—“my dress is three years old and my hair hasn’t been cut in over eighteen months.”

“Your hair is glorious,” said Donald, running his fingers through it. “
You
are glorious! We were meant to meet here tonight.”

I understood that everyone was carried away that night on a kind of euphoria which is impossible to describe. As Donald showered me with compliments and told me that he’d thought about me every day for the past three years, I sealed them in a box away from my heart, because I understood why he was saying them.

As the square slowly emptied on that frosty November night, Donald and I sat on the edge of the fountain in the center of it and gazed up at the stars in the clear bright sky.

“Cigarette?” he offered.

I took one and we sat close together, smoking companionably.

“I really can hardly believe it’s over,” he said in wonder.

“No, although I must be returning to the hospital soon. I still have many sick and wounded patients who need me, armistice or not.”

“I’m sure they’ve all flourished under your care, Anni. Truly, you were born to be a nurse.”

“In the future, I’d prefer to see more of my patients survive.” I shuddered. “I did all I could, but on so many occasions, I simply couldn’t help. I think I might like to continue it once the war is over.”

“It
is
over, my dearest Anni,” Donald said, teasing me, and we both chuckled at the phrase the world had used every day for the past four years.

“I really must be getting back now. Matron will flay me alive as it is.”

“I doubt it, not tonight. But if you must go, then I’ll accompany you.”

“Surely it’s out of your way?” I said as I stood up.

“No matter. Tonight, I feel I could walk a million miles.”

We strolled out of the village arm in arm and along the deserted road, the air still acrid from months of shell fire.

“You know, I really do believe that you were my talisman,” said Donald as we neared the entrance to the camp which contained my hospital. “I went over the top countless times and yet never received so much as a scratch.”

“I knew you were born lucky.” I grinned at him.

“Maybe, but you helped me believe it. And that was the important bit. Good night, Anni.”

Donald bent down then, and he kissed me. And I’m embarrassed to say that the kiss didn’t stop for a very long time.

•  •  •

The following two weeks were busy for me as we patched up the men still in our hospital in preparation for their journey back to England. Donald arrived every night in his jeep to take me out. The other nurses raised their eyebrows and tittered among themselves.

“Our Anni’s got herself a young man, and an officer at that! And he’s got two legs and two arms left as well. Lucky you!” said one of the nurses, not unkindly.

I tried desperately to seal my heart from Donald and the damage I was aware he could do to it. Neither of us, in that precious moment in time we shared together—a world without rules or convention, or society telling us how we must behave or whom we should love—talked of the future. We simply lived in the moment, relishing every second of it.

As it drew to a close, and I was due to travel back across the channel to England on a hospital ship with some of my patients, the intensity between us grew to a fever pitch.

“I’ll see you in London, won’t I?” Donald asked me desperately on our last night together. “And you will come down and stay at Astbury? You know how everyone adores you there.”

“Apart from your mother.” I rolled my eyes as I sat comfortably in his embrace in his jeep.

“Don’t mind her, she doesn’t like anyone. God, I couldn’t wait for the war to be over when it was raging, but now I have to contemplate facing dear Mama and the estate, I’m feeling far less euphoric.” He grimaced. “Astbury legally passed over to me on my twenty-first birthday a couple of weeks ago. So now it’s entirely my responsibility.”

“I think you’ll have some work to do there, yes,” I replied, the queen of understatement.

“Where will you be staying when you get back?”

“There’s a nurses’ hostel near the hospital where I’m being sent with my patients,” I answered. “It’s in Whitechapel, and I’ll be working there for the foreseeable future.”

“Anni,” Donald said, a sudden urgency in his voice, “don’t go back
tonight. Come with me to the village. I have a room there. At the very least, we can be together for a few hours more.”

“I . . .”

“Really, Anni, I’m a gentleman, and I wouldn’t do anything to compromise your virtue.”

“Hush,” I said, interrupting him, unable to stop myself. “I’ll come with you.”

Of course, it was as impossible that night as it has ever been the world over for two people in love not to wish to be joined in our special, human way. In that small darkened room, the soft light from the square seeping in between the shutters, as Donald gently removed my clothes, I didn’t feel one iota of guilt. As he kissed me all over my body, and we became one, I felt my faith in the gods and in humanity restored.

“I love you, my darling Anni, I must be with you,” he moaned, “I need you, I need you . . .”

“I love you too,” I whispered into his ear as our urgency increased, “and I always will.”

I
didn’t see Donald for the first month after we returned to England. It was Christmas—the first he’d had with his family at Astbury Hall for three years. But he wrote to me every day, long, beautiful letters, telling me how much he missed me, loved me and couldn’t wait until he was with me again.

I wrote back in return, letters full of my daily life at the hospital. Even though my heart was fit to burst with love for him, I restrained myself from letting it flow as completely onto paper as he did. Now I was back in England, the pragmatic side of me knew that I couldn’t allow myself to become completely swept up by him, for I simply couldn’t see a way in which we could be together in the future. I was kept very busy, thank the gods, at the London Hospital in Whitechapel, and one afternoon just after the New Year, I was called into the matron’s office and asked to sit down.

“Nurse Chavan, I’ve been discussing you today in my weekly meeting with the doctors. We all agree you have a special aptitude for nursing. Your record in France goes before you and your work here so far has been of the highest standard.”

“Thank you,” I said, feeling gratified by her praise. It didn’t come often.

“Before you left for France, you were only given basic training as an auxiliary nurse, is that correct?”

“Yes, Matron, but when I was in France, it was all hands to the pump and I learned many things from the doctors as I worked. I can suture professionally, dress wounds, give injections, and I also assisted the doctors with the many emergency operations they had to perform.”

“Yes, I’m aware of all that. You also have the air of calm authority which gives confidence to your patients. I already see that the more highly trained nurses look up to you and respect you. So what we at the hospital would like to suggest is that you train further and achieve the qualifications you need to become a nurse, and then perhaps a ward sister.”

I was overwhelmed; I had no idea my prowess had been so remarked upon. “Thank you, Matron, I’m honored.”

“You would still be based here at the hospital, but three days a week you would go to our on-site college to learn the appropriate technical side of the nursing you missed out on. You would officially qualify as a nurse in a year’s time. How do you feel about that?”

“I’d very much like to take the course.”

“Good. I shall enroll you immediately and you can start next week.”

“Thank you, Matron,” I said as I stood up and left the room. Outside, I gave an involuntary whoop of pleasure and excitement, thinking how proud my father and mother would have been of me. Two days later, to complete my happiness, Donald arrived in London. He was staying at the Astburys’ London house in Belgrave Square, where Selina was currently installed with little Eleanor and her nursemaid Jane, the girl I’d suggested take over from me.